Pisces and Libra
by Yoshiyuki Ly
Summary: Pulled in opposite directions; the scales balance those directions into unity, fairness, equality...oneness. There is no excess on this plane. The orbit shifts to fit the growth between. "A great, soaring, passionate indulgence."


**Rating:** R.  
**Disclaimer:**I don't own Final Fantasy XIII.

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_your disbelief: hand it over, if you will, for it must be suspended; shifting in orbit._

_(Lightning)_

_And the rift is shifting all around us, doing nothing to disturb us. A change in our environment can only do so much. We'll adapt, and find our way anew to comfort with one another. Hope chimes all around us, that we can do this. Growth is knocking hard on our door. The smallest of pauses aren't silence before the scope of things...it's appreciation._

Fang has her back to me, against me. Our weapons draw a triangle around us, with _us _as the perpendicular column right in the middle. And the lines, the perfect lines this column makes to the small windows at either side of us. The door in front of me is sealed shut. The door in front of Fang is sealed shut. The ceiling is not sealed, soaring in the night sky above. The floor could collapse at any moment, should we make any sudden movements. We hear the roaring outside, but it's really just the wind. The blue moon is directly above us: full.

This wooden house is suspended at the highest point in the sky, along two cliffs, sitting on each edge. I think it's more to the left, Fang's side; uneven. There are trees with no leaves on each cliff, and the branches-I want to say-connect to the house, as if they're a part of it. The same wood.

The cliffs curve beneath our feet, going all the way back down to Gran Pulse; shaping the wind. Holding it. Harboring it.

And it's so _cold_.

How did we get here? Hell if I know. I last remember being at home with her, getting into a bad argument, and then going to bed angry on the couch. She went to bed just as angry on the roof of our house for some reason. Said something about needing the stars to hold her, since I didn't know how to do it properly. I dismissed it at the time, and her...I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have argued with her in the first place. My ego keeps getting in the way of my relationship with her. When I stop to think about it, and every single feeling I have for her, I tell myself I don't need an ego with her. I don't need pride. I don't need my defenses.

_"...it's good that you are. Because I like to surprise. When people are hesitant, it kinda kills the romance of the gesture... If you know what I mean."_

The proverbial enemies are all around us, watching, blending in as sky or cloud: waiting to throw rocks or burn us out of the sky. Any movement we make could tip the house, or break its foundation, sending us both falling. We don't know what to do, so we stand at the ready with our weapons: our defenses up high, to protect this place, and ourselves from enemies unseen. We don't say a word. Our breathing is a fashion of forced-calm. One wrong step-too hard, too sudden-could puncture where we stand.

I want to face her, or at least _say _something. I feel like if I even say the wrong thing, it could send us to our deaths. The house sways back and forth a little more when I settle on what to do.

"Fang." She stiffens against me. I sigh, leaning against her a little more. The softness helps me to keep my balance while still _relying _on her. "How long do you plan on standing here like this? We're not getting anywhere."

Fang scoffs; my head moves as she shakes hers a little. Still so stiff. "For as long as it takes! No more, no less. I thought you knew me better than that by now. Then again, every time you make me think you know me, you turn around and do something to take all that back. Maybe I'm getting played with here. This place ain't real."

"So you still think it's my fault?"

Fang doesn't answer me. Not that I need her to. That was a stupid question, anyway...

Because it is my fault. There were others I wanted to keep close, before her. Before I met her, and realized that I can stop doing that. The things I do to people that no one knows about, that no one picks up on. When I think back to the argument, it's not clear that she knew. But from her body language, from everything she _didn't _say...I knew she knew. So I argued back, to defend myself, because it was in the past. It was over with. But from the way I haven't been treating her lately, she thinks she could fall victim to that: being in the background, being around only when I want her to be, being a back-up plan in case my next endeavor bores me...

_"It's not the truth that'd scare me off. That's the point. I want the truth, even if it's not so pretty. (Then what would scare you?) You not giving me that. I like truth in things...I find that beautiful.__ Even if I disagreed, I wouldn't let go. I've done stuff that I feel bad about - that I shouldn't be proud of - and I would never judge you because you're not an angel all the time. We all screw up and learn. I hope I'm not another past time for you, but I'm not going to think that way."_

That's no one's fault but my own. I don't blame her for thinking I could possibly do that. How did I expect to change her mind by arguing against the possibility, considering everything I haven't been doing lately?

Everything I've learned, to survive, means nothing. With Fang, all those lessons are nothing to me. As they should be. Nothing still has a habit of interfering-my inaction with her says that loud and clear.

Twenty-one years of keeping my heart locked, sealed; never giving it to anyone; never letting anyone see it; protecting myself; refusing to let anyone have an opinion about the depths of my soul I did not let them see; hostility to outsiders; staying cool to fight off the heat of temptation to truly _give _to someone unworthy, because I was vulnerable; to never speak my mind, to never risk saying what I feel to someone who can't care in the way I want them to, to never _be._

_"You're such a wonderful person and you don't let people see a fraction of that; if you did, I don't know what the hell I'd do. I wouldn't stand a chance."_

Because I wasn't living before. Just surviving-waiting for her to come into my life: to pick up my heart from its case, and admire and cherish it from the moment her fingerprints marked it as hers. Her fingerprints, first; even before she perceived the texture, before she sensed its true form with her fingers. The outline was always there, on my heart, in the exact shape of her hands-down to the very minute curves of her bones. And the orbit she put my heart into as she turned it so softly in her hands...it's still going.

It just shifts, in a good way, when she fills my heart with something new; so it swells, a change in size, and the orbit must follow to fit the difference. Precession is not at work here.

_"We're all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."_

My heart weighs down with guilt; she moves her head to look up at the stars, and I feel her energy shift. Those stars are so much closer now. She doesn't even have to reach for them, and they'll embrace her without question. They're never in too bad of a mood to give her all their attention. They're never too busy doing something to neglect her. They don't understand what it means to not want to be close to her. They're always looking out for her, always watching over her-no matter what.

I look up with her, wondering if we're looking at the same star. "You're at the very center, you know." Fang softens a little...just enough, to start. "You are the citadel, _my _citadel, my sanctuary. This place is real. Anywhere we are-together-is real, whether it's a dream or not. Even if I can't touch you...as long as I _feel _you...I know I'm alive."

I sheathe my blade, and take off my holster. The door in front of me is ripped from its hinges, and goes flying in the direction of the moon. The wind calms; Fang falls into me a little, swaying between staying there and pulling away from me. She's being pulled in two different directions. She doesn't know if this is safe or not. I hear her spear fall to the floor, as if dropped by accident.

_"I see you listen to what I say but I don't see you really react."_

My entire body starts to tremble when it hits me how hard I need to turn and look at her. I'm scared of making a wrong move, and... But that doesn't stop me. My fears to act on what I feel for the first time in my life are what brought us here. My stupidity, my immaturity. All of a sudden, it feels like I'm balancing on a high-beam over the rest of the world. My breathing picks up, as does the wind all around us. The house shakes, far too much, threatening to fall-I don't know how it stays perched on the edges of the cliffs. My mind tells me to hurry up and do this, to be able to at least hold onto her as we fall down when the foundation inevitably shatters. No, my heart says no, to not rush. Fang's already got a hold on my hips, my hands over hers...we need to do this at the same time.

We've been standing here all this time with our backs to each other. There has to be a way to stand with her.

I hold her hands in mine, caressing them with my thumbs. The familiarity of her touch makes me start to turn around. She follows my lead, letting one hand drop to do so. I hold onto her hand in one; use my other to hold her waist. A strong enough grip to keep her stable; soft enough to be as gentle as she needs me to be. My footing is precarious, though I try not to think about it. I try to imagine we're back to that night when we first danced together...how nervous I was. How I knew my steps weren't graceful at first, how she didn't notice because I at least took care to not step on her feet. I wanted her close to me...closer than close, to dance.

Now, it's as I've been too proud to admit: if I don't have her closer to me, I'll die alone. It could happen at any second. I can't waste a moment being away from her in any way.

The distance is closed, but the house doesn't calm down at all-if anything, it starts to shake even more. I don't sway at all because I'm holding onto Fang. That alone keeps me grounded. The truth calms me down. Her eyes so close to mine are all I see: their depths are coated with the moon's glow, and I'm transfixed. Her lips are barely against mine, brushing with a fullness I somehow forgot about. I look down at them for but a second, tilt my head, and stop; her face tints darker. Even here, even now...

_"I'm so confident that you are right for me, despite everything-our problems and fights, that I can imagine dying by your side one day. I can't foresee an issue that we wouldn't be able to work through in the future...that's how I feel right now."_

"Lightning," she breathes through my parted lips, filling me with the ardent reminder of how perfect she makes my name sound; "...I swear, even after all this time..." The moon's glow changes to suit our flushed faces' the blush of anticipation is heat incarnate along the sphere above: actual fire. "you are _still _a nightmare and a dream."

The moon is on fire and begins to shift, to subside the moment we press into each other; closer, closer, closer. The unrest that instills in her makes me want more. Less control. She _needs _me, she needs more air and the breaths she takes against my mouth get hotter and hotter. The suppleness of her lips is something I've yet to fully explore; the silk of her sari a softness I always succumb to, letting my hands roam all over her body.

_"Slopes and plains...you really need to...get to grips with them. Learn how to navigate, you know?"_

I let my lips take long tastes of her face, down her jaw, down to her neck. Her tongue along my ear cuts away a piece of my inhibitions; I grab the back of her thigh, and her other knee weakens, just as I like it. I match her movements, easing us down to our knees. The thickness of her thighs are addictive-I can't stop caressing, holding, learning. The sharp sounds she makes in my ear cuts away a bigger piece...and I drape her leg around me, running my hand down and over her shins to briefly admire her pointed foot. She massages my back, my scalp, my neck with her ravenous nails-I've let my tongue and teeth do as they please to her neck and shoulders, and I smell my own want in the breaths and moisture I've left behind over her skin.

My heart is outlined and filled with bittersweet anticipation. She lets me lie her down. Her figure must look marvelous beneath me like this. She's flexible, strong...her knee is still bent beneath her; her other leg wrapped around my waist; my hips right between hers. I move my lips back to hers, breathing in that jagged anticipation of her own. She makes to say something, most likely to question what I'm doing. I muffle her weak protests, on and off as often as I need to stop for air for a split-second. Through that, she still holds me tighter, shifting and squirming beneath me, setting me _off._

It feels like I blink and she's ripped my clothes off already. I don't do the same to her. I gloss my lips down, over her skin, over her sari, over her shoulders over and over again. Pressure is only applied when she pulls my head down, into her, always over her breasts. The way she holds me...it's as if she'd fall into the sky if she can't hold onto every part of me at the same time.

_"You're excluded from everything, but a part of everything. I set you aside from everyone I know or feel...but you're in everything I do, too."_

And when her sounds grow louder-more insistent, needy, soft-I hold onto her with what I always thought was excess...but her body tells me _more. _That feeling between us-that which started as a solitary spark-erupts in actual heat around us. It's no hyperbole, no misuse, no lie. I feel the sun rising nearby. The moment I let go and let my hand meet her, deep in her, that joining is so much _more _than the literal fire all around us. For that fire is uncontrollable, burning nothing in reality-in reality, it's just warm enough to heat us up with an irresistible zeal for one another. When I can't control myself, when I let Fang's devotion unlock me, I can't stop telling and showing her that I love her.

And she says it, too...over and over, pulling me into her over and over as she _writhes_. My whole body trembles again, with a need to please, to never stop this union. The sweat between us is manifest of a sudden; the smell of her skin, the taste; her breaths shaped by my name and the beautiful crimson sheen her skin and hair have become between the flames. I assure her I'll do anything for her, speak as she wishes, do as she pleases. Absolutely anything.

_Human error includes being unable to see the beauty right in front of us. I have no idea how I fell for that, not with this perpetual _need _inside of me to rise above myself with her by my side. It's unforgivable of me to ever forget her love, her care, her affection, her devotion. She's never given it to anyone before...and that makes it all the more special to me. I used to think my hands weren't made for tenderness...not when I'd look at them, and remember all the things I've done. Things I haven't told anyone. Things no one was able to see. __After all the confusing disappointments, I used _to think I wasn't made for anyone. _It showed in my cold attitude._

_Fang still wants to hold my hand, to hold me. I know this is right. My heart wouldn't trick me like this. She's unlocked my compassion, my understanding, my sympathy, my love. I'm my own worst enemy. I never worry about other people ruining what she and I have. The tyrant in me won't let them do it, won't let them anywhere near._

_She possesses depths the size of sensible scores. Longings the length of each chain that binds all men to humanity. I've been endlessly rising to power, to learn how to be weak in her arms in her care in her love. I remember the day she made me feel alive. I woke up to that somebody for the first time, as if she'd always been there. As if she never left. As if I had merely blinked and years passed to bring us together._

I will destroy mountains if you tell me you wish to stand with me where one once stood. Drain the space between time if you say you want to walk hand-in-hand with me along the horizon that once separated us.


End file.
